Monologue, my coming out story.
WHAT
EVER MAKES YOU HAPPY
‘I
can’t tell anyone, not ever. They’ll all hate me. I’ll have no
friends at all!’
It’s
what you think isn’t it?
We give our peers, our friends and families no
credit for the capability of acceptance or independent thought when we’re 14.
So we write, or at least, I wrote.
I
wrote diary entries, thousands of them, worrying over my suspected gayness and
the subsequent banishment from normal, hetero society, that I would surely have
to endure, should anyone ever find out.
I
wrote endless love poems to various girls. Some of whom I knew, some I had just
seen out on the street. Then I would burn them, in a moment of forlorn, over
dramatic self-torture.
I
wrote aching love letters and long confessionals to people who would never
receive them. The only one, who would ever read them, was me.
I boxed
myself up so tightly, wound myself into knots. Fear replacing the blood that
flowed in my veins. Convinced that no one would understand or accept me.
So I
pined away, finding my only solace or kinship in the writings of people like,
Virginia Wolfe, Emily Dickenson and Sylvia Plath.
As a
young teenager I was, what you might call, melancholy.
But
then by the time I hit 16, I began not to care. I began slowly and steadily, to
allow myself to entertain the possibility of telling people. I began to think, ‘it’s
ok, I like girls, and that’s not that bad, right? I haven’t killed anyone,
right?’. So I did it. I bit the bullet and told some friends. Close friends. My
closest, dearest friends, and they were wonderful.
They
had all already had an idea, none were surprised by it, and they were so
supportive.
To
supportive perhaps, because I had an almost dizzying sense of freedom.
‘This
is it’ I thought, ‘I can be anything,
do anything’, or ‘anyone’, as the case may be.
Yes,
I was free.
But,
jump to one week later, while listening to a very popular, late night radio talk
show.
Yes,
it is the one you’re thinking of.
The
topic: gay teenagers.
Me,
at home, in bed, listening in the dark, thinking, ‘That’s me, I am that, they are
talking directly to me, I have to ring in!’
So I
did.
I
spoke live on air about how, I was a lesbian and it was ‘fantastic’.
I
gave my real name, I didn’t see a reason not to.
At
that moment I wanted to shout it from the rooftops ‘Everyone loves me even
though I’m gay!!’.
And
then came the back lash.
As it
turned out, not everyone in my school was quite as understanding and forward
thinking as the four selected friends
I had chosen to tell.
It turned
out that, a catholic, convent run, girls school on the Northside of Dublin,
didn’t take to kindly to my new found pride in my orientation.
In fact
they didn’t really take to well to anything about me.
Apparently
my voice is a distinct one, because there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, that
the person they had heard on the radio the night before, was me.
As I
walked into school I was faced with hushed murmurs from hand covered mouths,
harsh glares that bore into the back of my skull as I walked past.
I
began to panic. I came up with a system:
1. Deny all knowledge of anything
even remotely gay
2. Talk very loudly, to anyone who
will listen, about various imaginary boyfriends
3. Regale everyone with stories of
my sexual exploits with said boyfriends
4. Go into very explicit graphic
detail about these exploits.
I was in full meltdown mode by the time any of
them plucked up the courage to actually verbalise an insult to my face.
‘Dyke’
they screamed, ‘carpet muncher’, ‘Bean flicker’.
Being
a general non-conformist as a youth, I was already used to insults being hurled
at me, but I usually got ‘Goth’ or ‘freak’. This was definitely an unwelcome
change of pace.
It
was a full on war, of sideways glances, and cat calls.
I
went home and cried.
Crest
fallen that my majestic emergence as a fledgling lesbian had failed so
miserably.
I
tucked myself back into the closet and stuck up a poster of a topless Brad
Pitt.
Not
surprisingly, Brad Pitt’s manly, rippling chest didn’t work, and my re-entry into
the closet was short lived, I had tasted freedom and I couldn’t get the taste
of it out of my mouth.
By
the time I was 17 I had my first girlfriend. A thoroughly disastrous affair,
with a terrible ending that is definitely worthy of another story all to
itself.
By 18
I came out to my folks.
Well,
I say came out to them, what I should really say is they ‘outed’ me.
It
was a Friday night, and myself and Mam and Dad were having a drink and watching
TV.
What
was on was a movie, I think, some typical, ‘straight to television’ number, but
with lesbian content.
Heat rose
in my cheeks, I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair every time these women were
on the screen, and filled the room with inane chatter every time they kissed.
It
was during one of my nonsensical ramblings that my father, god bless him,
turned to me and said, ‘So, are you and Maria gay, or what?’, Maria was the
aforementioned disastrous first girlfriend.
Obviously,
being the cool, calm, and collected person that I am, this question was met in
an entirely irrational way, and I burst into uncontrollable tears.
My
mother, who was seated across the room from me, simply looked from my father to
me and said ‘Well?’.
‘Well,
what would you do if I said yes’ I managed to utter, through deep gulping sobs
and a running nose.
You
know, to this day, I have never heard a nicer response from anyone’s parents in
their coming out saga.
My
father turned to me, put out his hand, grasped mine tenderly, and, while I
continued to cry, looked me dead in the eyes and said, ‘I’d take you in my
arms, give you a big hug, and tell you, that whatever makes you happy, makes me
happy, and I love you’.
With
that my mother got up from her chair and joined us two on the couch.
I was
enveloped by my parents.
Locked
in a bear hug of love and acceptance that they have never let me out of.
Even
now, 12 years on from that night, I still feel shrouded in their love and
support, and I know that I am truly blessed.
